Cat In The Rain Theme

In our everyday lives, we try to avoid confrontation. We fear that once done, it will change our lives for the worse. As a result of this, we isolate ourselves to avoid the conflicts we choose not to encounter. The line between negligence and the act of seeking help for the benefit of an individual 's’ wellbeing is definite and has the power to change an individual’s life conspicuously. Trust is essential for change to occur. Without trust, one is not able to confide in anyone and makes isolation more unbearable than it already is. ‘Hills like White Elephants’ and ‘Cat in the Rain’ displays this idea and both revolve around a couple that have communication issues.

‘Hills like White Elephants’ starts off with an American man and his young

Hemingway shows this through the wife’s character, who is perceived as lively and wants to go out in the rain to save a cat. Her husband looks to be the complete opposite of her as he ignores his wife’s longing for the cat and immerses himself in a book on the bed. Hemingway refers to the wife as an “American wife” to show the reader her reflection of a stereotypical ‘American wife’ where they are dependent on their husbands and meet society’s expectations of a wife which can be incredibly dull and dreary. However, her energy and spirit changes when she sees the cat in the rain and tries to go out and rescue it as if for a temporary sense of purpose. The cat is a representation of a child that the wife wants because she is not able to receive or display affection to her husband so she’d rather give all her attention to a child. Hemingway shows us that when isolation becomes too hard to cope with when in a relationship, people will divert their devotion elsewhere where they think they serve a meaning or purpose. This is reinforced when she begins to list her desires, “Her own silver...candles...long hair...new clothes and a kitty,” which are all materialistic things that comes from the fact that she cannot receive intangible things like warmth and endearment from her husband. The wife comes to realise she wants change in her life but is unable to clearly